


Heaven's Fools

by Stranger



Category: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stranger/pseuds/Stranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>English country-house lad meets Dorian Red Gloria, and learns a lot in a short time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven's Fools

**Author's Note:**

> Written during the 1990s. Has a tangential relationship (aka music to which it was written) to the song "Ship of Fools" by Robert Plant and Phil Johnstone, from the Plant 1988 album "Now and Zen."

There was a lifeboat drill on the afternoon of the first full day the _Leonardo Da Vinci_ was at sea. Kit Barrington and his aunt found their lifeboat, the _de'Benci_, listened to the steward's lecture about lifevests and emergency procedures, and were released to mingle in first-day-of-cruise confusion with the inhabitants of the lifeboat next in line, the _La Gioconda_.

Aunt Vivian, only slightly rumpled by lifevest practice, plunged happily into this newest opportunity to acquaint herself with her shipmates, on this hours-old voyage from Southampton to Naples. Kit could guess that she would start with the very suburban-looking couple from the _La Gioconda_ side of the crowd, and he hoped they didn't have an eligible daughter on board. Kit's attention fastened on a gesticulating figure at the far side of the group, a smallish, dark-haired man waving some metallic square thing at someone blocked from view. It looked like a minor bit of excitement and it wasn't anywhere near Aunt Vivian, so Kit worked his way in that direction.

His curiosity took him far enough to get a good look at the object of the gesticulations, and he forgot everything else on the instant. _That's the most gorgeous man I've ever seen in my life!_ Kit couldn't help staring. The stranger was tall and slim and cool-looking in white clothes that managed to be both elegant and casual. Golden curls waved in the sea breeze, flying down past his shoulders. _How can he get away with wearing that much hair?_ One half-bare arm sported a heavy gold bracelet fit for a Viking.

Kit, glad that he'd left his respectable-schoolboy wardrobe in Staffordshire, edged closer. He could no more have turned away from the compelling blond vision than he could have breathed underwater. The shorter, dark-haired man gave a final shake of his pocket calculator, a very old model, and was silenced by a wave of the blond's hand. "Mr. James, what would I do without you?"

"You'd lose money. You'd lose more money than you waste now!"

The perfect, long-boned face was touched with humor that even this assault couldn't erase. "Perhaps I would. Go re-count the purser's calculations if it pleases you. I shan't change my accommodations, but you may do whatever you like for yourself." His voice was a perfect, warm, home-counties drawl.

Thus dismissed, the excitable Mr. James took himself off and Kit found that he was under scrutiny from a pair of brilliant blue eyes. The stranger smiled.

Kit smiled back, unable to stop himself.

"Well. Are you—"

This promising acquaintance was interrupted by Aunt Vivian. "Kit! Christopher!" Kit felt himself thud back to reality, and almost expected the blond man to evaporate as quickly as he'd appeared. Instead, with no more than a glance in Vivian's direction, the stranger seemed to understand the situation.

"Why don't you introduce me?" he said, voice pitched for Kit alone, and his eyes did not turn to Vivian.

Kit waved his aunt over, feeling lightheaded. "Sir, my aunt, Vivian Barrington. This is—"

"Dorian Red, Earl of Red Gloria," the man broke in before Kit could falter. Aunt Vivian, who had been assessing the gold bracelet for evidence of Bohemian or other un-English tendencies, jerked her eyes back to his face.

"How do you do?" she answered, with more deference than, Kit expected, she had planned for the unconventional-looking owner of the curls. "I hope Christopher hasn't been annoying you?"

"Not at all." The Earl smiled down at Vivian's diminutive figure in her respectable tweeds. "Let me guess: You have at least one consuming hobby. It's either gardening or watercolor painting. Am I right," he glanced down at her hands, "Miss Barrington?"

"Why, yes," said Aunt Vivian, clearly flattered by the attention. "I'm a gardener."

Kit watched the Earl exercise charm on his aunt: "Oh, good. I did hope it would be gardening. Perhaps you'd like to meet a friend of mine." He caught the eyes of another member of the _La Gioconda_ group, who lost no time in joining the three of them. "The Honorable Charlotte Melrose, Miss Barrington. Mrs. Melrose has a bit of a garden in York."

"Yes, a bit of one," said their newest acquaintance. Her voice was musical and tinged with a Northern accent, and she wore a large antique pendant over otherwise unremarkable plain clothes. "Do you do flowers, fruit or vegetables?"

"I just try to stay out of greenhouses," said Vivian, which was how she started every conversation with a fellow gardener, "so I do seasonal flowers, mostly. Except in winter, of course."

"Very wise of you, really," said Mrs. Melrose. "What's your local soil like?"

Aunt Vivian embarked on a detailed description of the soil in Staffordshire, and Kit caught another smile from the handsome Earl.

"I did hope they'd find something to talk about," he murmured, "Christopher. Is that what you like to be called?"

"Kit, please. Kit Barrington, Uh, Lord—"

"Perhaps you would rather call me Dorian?" There was a hint of something in the question that sent Kit's heart racing. _Calm down,_ he told himself, _he's just being nice to a kid whose aunt pleases his friend and it's only a ten-day cruise and he's absolutely the most beautiful man in the world..._ It did not seem odd to think of the Earl as beautiful.

"You are not young enough to insist on formality, I hope?"

"I'm eighteen," said Kit. It occurred to him for the first time that the Earl — Dorian — was certainly no more than twenty-five.

"I thought so. There is a very good afternoon buffet on this ship — doesn't the drill give you an appetite?" He nodded toward the walkway and Kit let himself be led toward the upper-deck dining hall, though his appetites were in more than a little confusion.

Settled at a table in a semi-private niche, with sandwiches and a selection of the ship's chef's exquisite pastries (Dorian had professed fascination with the variety of forms in which whipped cream could be used), Kit asked, "Do you know Mrs. Melrose well?"

"She and I share some interests. The friendship is not... close." The Earl picked up an elaborate arrangement of sliced strawberries and buttercream and contemplated it thoughtfully. "Do you like your aunt?"

"She's my only aunt," said Kit. "She still thinks I'm twelve."

"Surely not, if she is going to Naples with you? I would think she is glad to have so personable a nephew to escort her."

At this, Kit found it difficult to swallow. He succeeded at a third attempt and put down the remains of bread and sliced turkey. "She's taking me to Italy to go swimming."

"Oh?"

"I'm a competitive swimmer. It's time I went to some meets outside England."

"Does Miss Barrington also swim?"

"Only to keep from drowning." Kit could not be interested in Aunt Vivian at this moment. "Do you?"

"Enough to keep from drowning," said Dorian, and bit into a chocolate-covered eclair, which promptly disgorged a gout of white filling, fortunately onto its plate. "I have other hobbies, for the most part." He began mopping up clumps of rum-scented whipped cream with a fastidious forefinger.

"Actually," said Kit, mesmerized, "Aunt Vivian's trying to keep me out of trouble."

"Dear me," said his new, noble and troublesome-looking acquaintance, "what might that mean?"

"My coach did want me to try some more challenging competitions this summer, but my parents packed me off with Aunt Vivian this early because of... complications at home."

"Oh?" Dorian licked his finger clean. "This is extremely good pastry. Tell me about your complications, if you'd like to. I promise confidence, sympathy and all the whipped cream you might like." He pushed the eclair plate to a position between them and continued to mop up spilled filling.

It smelled dizzyingly rich. "Perhaps I will, thank you. They want me to meet the right girls."

"Surely you're too young to worry about marriage?"

"I mean, they don't want me to go on meeting..." Kit eyed the Earl's fingers as they picked up whipped cream, blob by blob.

"Goodness, are you afflicted with an unsuitably broken heart?" The easy voice did not let it sound tragic, but neither was Dorian making fun of the possibility. "That always hurts, and it hurts most the first time."

"No, not really. Nothing like that. It's more that they want to keep me away from undesirable influences."

"How very antiquated," said Dorian, scooping up another fingerful of cream and licking it off. "One's parents seldom know exactly how undesirable one's influences are." He offered Kit a globule of whipped cream, round and white and deliciously scented, on his fingertip. "Do they?"

Kit looked into serenely amused blue eyes, prayed that he was reading the message as given and not simply as he would very much like to read it, and ducked his head to lick off the whipped cream. Cream and fingertip slid sweetly over his tongue.

"Very nice," said Dorian, "isn't it? What... ah, persuasion was your indiscretion?"

Kit felt himself go red, then defiantly reached to pick up a bit of the whipped cream for himself. "Exactly what you think," he said. He looked at his finger for a moment, and offered it to Dorian. The warm, wide mouth closed on his fingertip, sucked gently, and pulled slowly free, with disastrous effect on what was left of Kit's composure.

Dorian swallowed and smiled at Kit's flushed face. "Good. I believe your aunt and Charlotte will be busy for some time. Would you like to see my cabin?"

It was as fast and as easy as that. Kit marveled, during the breathless walk down a narrow curving ship corridor, at the quality of the encounter. This was happening too fast to be like the painful infatuations which had taught him his preference, and both he and Dorian were conscientiously casual, but it was momentous in a way that made lust trivial. Dorian's attitude fascinated him as much as Dorian's person: the self-acceptance — and acceptance of Kit — was so total that only the rest of the world seemed out of step.

Dorian opened a cabin door and closed it behind them. He was not, Kit observed at this close range, so very much taller...

"Last chance," said the warm voice softly, from very near. "Last chance to tell me I've quite mistaken your intention in coming here with me." A hand slid over Kit's shoulder and down his arm.

"I don't think so." Kit lifted his face to stare into Dorian's eyes, and snaked his arms around the body so intoxicatingly near.

Dorian kissed him then, and drew back to survey the result.

"Love the whipped cream," said Kit, not letting go until Dorian began to undress him. It felt too good to let go.

It was the first time Kit had bedded with someone who knew precisely what he was doing and that was headier than the pastry cream. He lost all vestige of control, writhing in Dorian's arms, then under Dorian's hands and mouth, long before he could think that the man was still very nearly a stranger. Unbearably excited by the first touch, he climaxed within an embarrassingly few minutes of their reaching the bed.

Dorian wasn't embarrassed, or even surprised. He kissed Kit again, chuckling, and rolled them together onto their sides, his body wriggling purposefully against Kit's.

"Wha..." asked Kit, still groggy.

"Shh. You're beautiful when you come, did you know?"

"What?!"

Dorian trapped him by flinging a leg over his, which initiated a pleasant bout of subdued wrestling for purposes that were not belligerent. When they were finally locked together in silent agreement, the interesting pressure at Kit's groin was enhanced by hands that began stroking down his back and buttocks. Fingertips trailed downward, exploring.

"Mmm?" queried Kit, when he realized their goal.

"Ever done that?" asked an unhurried whisper. The teasing touches were delicate, igniting sensation Kit could not deny.

"Yes," said Kit. He had, all of twice. "But, Dorian..."

"Hmm? Didn't like it?" There was gentle inquiry in the voice and no insistence in the touch that continued to stroke Kit with feathery fire. Only the fire insisted.

"I... uh..."

"D'you think you'd like it now?"

That was exactly what Kit felt he would like. "Yes." He couldn't think. He had the start of a second erection already, and the sensitive fingertips, no less than the sinewy body in his grasp, were sure of themselves. They'd make sure of him.

"Good for you." Dorian pressed against him again, with happy effect for both of them, and grinned at Kit. "Good." He maneuvered, still not hurrying, until he could arrange Kit face down on the bed. "Let's make this as easy as we can for you." The fingers were back, stroking liquidly at him, into him, bringing sensations Kit wasn't sure he could classify. "Good?"

There was fire deep inside, and another, more familiar fire in his groin. Kit moved a little, experimentally, gasped, and gasped again as a hand slid in under him to clasp his erection. "Yessss..."

One hand shifted, the other merely squeezed, electrifying; weight moved on the bed and Kit felt himself being touched, and probed, and finally entered. The motion was slow, smooth, almost painful, but compelling. He could hear Dorian's breathing, quick and shallow, and let himself moan.

The motion stopped. "Hurt?"

"Oh no." He moaned again in pure excitement, then couldn't control a shiver as the hand beneath him squeezed again and Dorian pushed in further. It might have hurt, but Kit was too caught in the deep, hot sensation to care. He moaned, and went on moaning until a final squeeze and thrust sent him over the edge again, a moment before he heard a muffled groan from Dorian as well.

The weight on him, in him, lifted, and a second groan accompanied Dorian's collapse next to him.

Presently a hand rubbed up and down his back. "Okay now?"

Kit managed to inch closer so that he was lying against Dorian. "Good. Better. Best."

"That's the idea." The chuckle beside him was exhausted but pleased.

Kit, unable to describe the experience even to himself, resorted to, "You're amazing."

"I'm not the only one. Lovely Kit, it was a godsend to find you today."

"Why?" said Kit in a daze. "Today?"

"Any time."

"You could have anyone on the ship." Kit tried for a joking note. "Even Aunt Vivian, if you cared. Why me?"

"Impertinent nephew. I don't mean any discourtesy to your aunt, but no, I should not care to entertain her here, nor Mrs. Melrose, nor any of the right girls you will presently meet if you are not careful to avoid them."

"I hope I will avoid them."

"Let that wait. For today, I believed you liked what you saw, didn't you?"

Kit nodded, and felt Dorian's fingers ruffling through his fine, collar-length hair. "So did I," said Dorian. He went on touching, stroking Kit's skin idly now, sliding a hand over shoulderblades, spine, nape of neck. "Hmm, you really are a swimmer, aren't you?" The hands were soothing Kit into a doze. "I hope you will want to repeat this sort of meeting, during the voyage."

Kit could only nod, trying to emulate Dorian's perfect casualness about something that was so rare and perishable. The cruise would last only ten days.

# # #

Dinner that evening was an exercise in multiple realities. Kit changed for the meal in a euphoric haze and met Dorian again on the way out of his cabin. The Earl smiled secretly at him in the momentarily empty corridor. "Which is your aunt's room?" he asked.

Kit nodded in the direction he remembered was aft. "Next door, separate."

"Good." Dorian reached to skim a fingertip briefly over his face. "Not tonight," he said softly, and smiled again at Kit's instant disappointment. "Tomorrow, or tomorrow night. Or both, if we can."

That restored the evening's gloss. They reached the dining hall, now arranged with orderly oblong tables, when it was still less than half full. Dorian lingered with Kit, sitting in Aunt Vivian's chair to continue their earlier conversation as if nothing had happened between afternoon buffet and dinner seating.

"How will you be able to practice swimming during the trip?" he asked, as gravely as any adult humoring Kit's ambitions, though Kit detected a glint of attention that was not an adult's to a youngster.

The ship's pool was overcrowded all the time, as far as Kit had seen, and undersized for his needs. Kit made a face. "The pool is always full of bodies, impossible to work in. I think the cruise is going to have to be a holiday for me."

"I suppose the ocean itself is inadvisable?"

"It has been explained to me," said Kit, thinking resentfully of a stern lecture received when he had made the same suggestion, "that as I'm not training for the infinite-length freestyle, the ocean is off limits. The ship moves faster than I can swim. They say."

Dorian's golden curls, magnificent over black evening clothes, shook slowly, but his eyes were dancing. "Oh, yes. I quite see. What's your best event, when you have proper facilities?"

Kit's reply to this became excessively technical. He was deep into meter-length measures and stroke styles when someone cleared her throat behind them.

It proved to be Mrs. Melrose, whose hand appeared, showily possessive, on Dorian's shoulder. "Storm warnings, boys," she said, and winked at Kit. "Vivian has been hearing gossip, and I'm sorry to say it wasn't mine."

"I'm sure you did your best, darling," said Dorian, and rose from the seat to remain standing next to it. "Do stay a moment and shield me from her wrath. I want to stay on speaking terms with her."

Kit had stood up as well, and Dorian nodded at Mrs. Melrose for his benefit. "I hope you've noticed the miniature? The pendant?"

"I see she's wearing one," said Kit. It was, indeed, a tiny picture of a woman in a jeweled frame.

"That's a step in the right direction. Charlotte rejoices in the possession of an exquisite example of Samuel Cooper's art, worth infinitely more than the regrettably vulgar setting bequeathed her by her grandmother."

"So right," said Mrs. Melrose cheerfully. "Still, Jane liked rubies. Grandmother liked rubies. It's a family tradition."

"It's very pretty," said Kit politely.

"It's a glorious example of Restoration esthetics triumphing over the dull plebian code of the Puritans," said Dorian, "and also a most suitably animated portrait of a lively subject."

"He means," said Mrs. Melrose, "that the person in the portrait wasn't respectable even by Restoration standards. If she sat for Cooper, do we care now?"

Kit was about to agree that it made no difference to the picture when a determined step sounded at the far side of the table. Mrs. Melrose looked up from the pendant. "Good evening, Vivian."

"Good evening, Charlotte, Lord Red Gloria." Aunt Vivian's tone stiffened on the second name.

Before she could focus on Kit, Dorian said, "So good to see you again. Has Charlotte told you the story behind her miniature? There was a friend of a friend of Charles II...."

Vivian thawed a little. "Of course she's mentioned it. I would be happy to hear more about it later. Isn't it time to be seated for dinner?"

"You're quite right," said Dorian. "Do excuse us." He led Mrs. Melrose away to their table.

Kit seated his aunt and sat down again himself, repressing the urge to look after Dorian and Mrs. Melrose. He needed no thought at all to know that he shouldn't let Aunt Vivian see him do so.

Mr. and Mrs. Selby, introduced this morning as two of their table-mates, could be seen at the dining hall door and all the chairs were filling fast. "Kit," said Aunt Vivian in an undertone, "that's not a good person for you to know. You mustn't..."

"I mustn't what?" asked Kit blandly into her ominous pause. "Mustn't talk to Mrs. Melrose? I thought you liked her."

"Not her! The Earl!" Her voice sank to a scratchy whisper. "He's far too... unconventional, to be good for you."

"I don't think I should be rude to him," said Kit. "You won't, will you? You spoke to him just now. He's a friend of Mrs. Melrose's, so you can't ignore him."

"No, I can't. But he's not proper. Not for you."

Kit, who knew far better than his aunt just how properly he and Dorian suited one another, turned a choke of laughter into a cough and tried to change the subject. "Who was Samuel Cooper?" The Selbys were in the process of sitting down.

Vivian glanced at the Earl's table, where Mrs. Melrose and her pendant were the center of admiring attention. "That's like asking, 'Who was John Donne.'"

"Sorry, Aunt. I do know some of Donne's verses."

"I should hope so. Cooper was a portraitist and miniaturist in the 17th century. He's considered the best of his age."

Mr. Selby leaned in from Aunt Vivian's other side. "Ah, you were talking with Mrs. Melrose earlier, weren't you? Have you been introduced to the Hilhouse miniature, then?"

"Naturally." Aunt Vivian seized the opportunity. "She's very proud of it, but she and I are gardeners as well. Are you interested in—"

"Ah, yes, ground vegetables!" said Mr. Selby. "We're from Sussex, and the summers are wonderful for growing." His wife gave Kit a look of bored sympathy from down the table.

"Well, I do try to stay out of greenhouses," began Aunt Vivian, and Kit knew that he could safely concentrate on his dinner for the time being. He had a remarkably good appetite for the meal.

# # #

Kit spent the evening rather self-consciously under Aunt Vivian's eye, reading in a corner of the smaller ship's lounge where she had established a circle discussion on gardening and other English pursuits. He had stopped listening when the words "herbaceous border" were introduced, though the iniquities of the current government seemed to be the topic now. Vivian was in her element.

The view through the open double doors to the larger lounge included a corner of the bar, where much more interesting-looking people seemed to be holding much more interesting conversations. He could see Dorian through the glass panes of another set of doors. The Earl was chatting, apparently casually, with a couple of anonymous-looking men in undistinguished suits. They were interrupted by the dark-haired little maniac with the calculator, who brandished his talisman at all three of them. This identified the meeting, Kit hoped, as a business conference, though his curiosity about Mr. James grew more pointed when the Earl lavished a melting smile on him. Everyone in the group ignored the by-play as Dorian patted Mr. James on the arm, whispered something in his ear, and sent him off, calculator and all, on some errand that Mr. James appeared to feel was extremely important.

Then the blond head turned back to the other two, and all three of them laughed. Kit relaxed and noted that Aunt Vivian was still engrossed in conversation. He turned a page of the ship's library's _Guide to Great Museums of Italy_ and angled it so that he could watch Dorian again. He might be giving orders, though Kit couldn't imagine what about. The two plain-suited figures, from their posture, could be receiving orders. Eventually they nodded and stood up to leave. A woman, who looked Italian and decorative, immediately sat down in their place. From her face, she was flirting with Dorian.

Kit returned to a map of the Uffizi, wishing it were a listing instead of the great swimming pools of Italy. When he glanced up again, Dorian's group included two women, neither of whom looked Italian, flirting with him. Dorian seemed quite happy. _Either he meant it or he didn't,_ thought Kit, eyes on a Florentine floor plan. _Either he'll speak to me tomorrow or he'll stay away. I won't run after him if he doesn't want me._ He couldn't bear the thought of being humored, as the Earl obviously humored Mr. James.

# # #

His doubts were allayed after breakfast the next day, when Mrs. Melrose collected Aunt Vivian at the end of the meal to carry her off to the ship's hairdresser, over Vivian's pleased and insincere protests. "You _must_ try Giuseppina," said Mrs. Melrose firmly. "She'll love your bone structure."

"My...?"

"She adores the English face." And the two of them were out of earshot, out of the dining hall, and out of sight.

Dorian, resplendent in a blue sweater that matched his eyes, strolled over as their wake died away, to settle at the now-empty breakfast table in the vacated chair next to Kit's. "Lovely morning."

"Yes, it is," said Kit. Suddenly it was.

"I've asked if you might use the ship's pool for an hour each day in the morning before it opens for passenger use."

"You did?" said Kit, and re-assessed the advantages of acquaintance with the Earl of Red Gloria. Such a solution had not occurred to him.

"I did. You may start tomorrow. I had to promise the first officer that you were an accredited Red Cross lifesaving expert."

"Yes, for years," said Kit absently, thinking. "What time in the morning is that?"

"Early, I'm afraid. So early that it will not surprise your aunt to find that you are not in your cabin before breakfast." His eyes met Kit's with a smile full of meaning.

Late-breakfast chatter still occupied many passengers at other tables; he and Dorian were effectively speaking in privacy. "And," said Kit, testing carefully, "who's to know where I was before I got up for practice?"

"Precisely." Dorian's smile widened. "Where you do sleep, of course, is entirely your choice. I believe I shall change cabins with Mrs. Melrose, which would put me further forward." Nearer Kit, on the side opposite Aunt Vivian.

"For me?" Kit could not keep the question in.

Dorian's eyebrows lifted fractionally. "What do you think?"

"I think you're going to a lot of trouble."

"Not at all. I'm accustomed to going after what I want. Or," he said calmly, "giving it the best chance of coming to me. There's also a question of how to spend the next couple of hours, since I fear your aunt's company will not be available."

"Together?" Kit knew he sounded eager.

The voice was warm, exciting, caressing. "I should like it."

It was the clearest possible answer to his qualms of the night before. The explanation had been given with little feeling, but Dorian waited for his answer with every sign of attention and no impatience. This was not a transaction, Kit realized, but an agreement between them. For ten days and no more.

Marveling at his new awareness of such subtleties, Kit nodded. "Yes. Where?"

# # #

The _Da Vinci_ traveled south, stopped for a day at Lisbon, squeezed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and began the second, sun-drenched half of its voyage in the Mediterranean Sea. Kit Barrington lived in a suspended world of day-lit water, nighttime fire, and breezy uncertainties. He welcomed each midnight, and enthusiastically absorbed the complex arts of simple pleasure that Dorian seemed to take for granted.

His days were spent convincing his aunt that the Earl was no more than an off-hand acquaintance, and in this he found a disinterested ally in Mrs. Melrose. She claimed Dorian as dinner partner and social supporter, and Dorian allowed it. Kit, therefore, allowed it as well, and found that the arrangement had some advantages.

"Surely you play bridge," Mrs. Melrose asked Aunt Vivian one evening during the post-dinner shuffle to find entertainment of any meaningful or unmeaningful kind.

"Naturally," said Vivian. "If you're setting up a table, I'd be delighted..."

"Excellent. Kit? Do you play?"

Kit played adequately and knew that Aunt Vivian knew it. "I'm a beginner compared to Aunt, but if you need a fourth, I can fill in." If he was fourth, he had a good idea who, with Mrs. Melrose, was first.

She nodded at his unasked question. "We do need you. I've forced Red Gloria to admit that he wouldn't mind a game this evening. Today has been so quiet."

It was too late for Aunt Vivian to draw back, but the meeting would let her chaperone Kit while she had another chance to size up the Earl. She wouldn't object. Kit wondered about it while Dorian obtained cards and a suitable table in the small lounge. When the Earl asked Vivian, "Will you partner me for the game?" her last trace of reluctance melted away.

She even said, "Of course, Lord Red Gloria," before she remembered to ask anything about his approach to contract bridge. Kit hoped it wouldn't backfire on them all, for Aunt Vivian played demon bridge.

Dorian dealt, neatly, picked up his hand and frowned at it, rearranged a few cards, and rearranged a few more. Kit's hand, when he picked it up, was low and spread out — not even a good supporting hand. He didn't bother to count it. "Pass."

Vivian's computations would have taken about fifteen seconds, but she waited until the Earl had finished fidgeting and had smiled vaguely around the table. "Two spades," she said.

"Two no trump," said Mrs. Melrose, a brave bid under the circumstances, since she couldn't know how little help Kit would be.

"Three spades," said Dorian.

"Pass."

"Pass." Aunt Vivian's eyes were on the Earl with interest entirely unrelated to her nephew or Dorian's rumored unconventionality. Kit realized suddenly just who had suggested the game first, as surely as if he'd heard Dorian with his own ears.

They all focused on Mrs. Melrose, who shrugged. "Pass."

"Your lead, Miss Barrington," said Dorian, laying down his hand face up on the table. It would take three spades and probably more by itself.

Vivian cleaned the table with them trick by trick, and scored in the hundreds, which ended that game. "Shall we make it a rubber?" she asked brightly.

"By all means," said Dorian. "Very nicely played, Miss Barrington."

It took one more hand to finish the rubber, as Dorian, fortunately, also played demon bridge. Aunt Vivian beamed on him with approval.

"You're not being fair, Dorian, taking the best partner," said Mrs. Melrose. "You must let us divide you and conquer."

"In a moment, darling. Have you a cigarette? Miss Barrington? May I stay here while I smoke?"

"You may, if you'll call me Vivian. You make me feel quite old."

"That wasn't my intention," said Dorian. "You look charming this evening. Have you changed your hair lately? It suits you, I think."

Aunt Vivian nodded graciously from her five-foot-two and lowered her eyes. "Please smoke," she said, and Kit could almost hear her thinking that the Earl might be outrageously forward, but did that have to be called improper, here? Over Vivian's head, blue eyes met Kit's, alight with glee.

Kit smiled back, and watched Dorian light the cigarette, hoping his surprise was hidden. He hadn't thought the Earl smoked. _Don't make assumptions,_ he reminded himself. _I don't know Dorian, really. Afterwards we'll leave the ship and I'll never know him._ The thought should have been sad, but — like nearly everything about Dorian — it was tremendously exciting.

Dorian caught his gaze again and smiled lazily around the cigarette, a bedroom smile. A moment later Mrs. Melrose shook her head at Kit and asked a question about bridge. Kit's slow answer gave Aunt Vivian time to jump in instead, and Mrs. Melrose listened attentively. Kit, remembering that he could be observed at any time by anyone, especially Aunt Vivian, glued his eyes to Mrs. Melrose.

It seemed to have been determined that the two women would be partnered for the next rubber, which left him with Dorian. That should be an interesting strain on his self-possession. Kit's glance at Dorian showed an abstracted profile, the ever-present mane of curls and an elegant hand raising a half-smoked cigarette. It was, inexplicably, the hottest thing Kit had ever seen in public. He swallowed and tore his eyes away again, focused at random on Mrs. Melrose and said, since he was the center of a conversational lull, "I see you're not wearing your favorite pendant." She did wear the miniature nearly every day.

"Not with this frock," she said, quite seriously. "Did you like it so much?"

"I hoped you would let me look at it again." Dorian's anecdotes about the Restoration court were not the sort one read in textbooks. "I'd like to hear more about it. I believe"— Kit caught himself in time — "the Earl said there was a story behind it?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow if I'm wearing her then." But she was pleased, with Dorian as well as him, Kit saw. If the bridge game was for Aunt Vivian, was Dorian's admiration of the pendant for Mrs. Melrose? The insight into Dorian's methods was as provocative as Dorian himself.

They took their places for the second rubber, and at last Kit could watch Dorian openly while they played. It didn't improve Kit's game, but he'd been ingrained with enough by-the-book habits to keep from disgracing himself. The three games, fought largely between Vivian and the Earl, seemed to take a very long time.

It was well after midnight when Dorian closed his cabin door with only the two of them inside and smiled the lazy smile at Kit again. After the evening's anticipation, Kit caught instant fire. He was given very little time to wonder, between Dorian's chuckle and the speedy answering fire, how many purposes the bridge game might have served in all.

# # #

The morning after an exhausting all-day shopping excursion on Majorca during which Aunt Vivian had used him as a package carrier, Mrs. Melrose had winked at him twice, and both women had made him the object of their conversation for hours, Kit decided he had earned some leisure and settled himself in a blamelessly public deck chair with _Great Museums of Italy_ to wait for noon. At noon, Aunt Vivian would be occupied with Mrs. Selby and someone named Signora Marchesi, whose advice she had solicited about her Majorcan wardrobe purchases. At noon, Dorian had intimated, he would be freed from a tiresome piece of business which claimed his morning. Kit turned to the general commentary on Naples and began reading.

Around a corner drifted voices that sounded vaguely familiar. Kit stared at the book and tried not to overhear until Mr. James's unmistakable voice said, "The Earl's been too busy — day _and_ night — to notice anything, hasn't he? What if he misses the timing?"

A heavier voice that was recognizable, after a moment, as belonging to a vaguely-recalled broom-bristle mustache, replied, "What's that? 'Is lordship is never interested in 'erself the Melrose? Why, she's—"

"No," hissed James, and the note of spite, also, could not be mistaken. "It's that boy. You know, the tall one coming out freckles."

Kit could not have stopped listening for storm, wrack or social ruin. Mr. Bonham, he thought the mustache was, produced a wordless sound of massive enlightenment, and followed it with, "That's all right then."

"All right?" said James's petulant tones. "It's horrible!"

"Not for 'is lordsh'p," said Mr. Bonham. "You 'ad me worried. It just wouldn't do for 'im to take up with a lady. Even an 'onorable."

Mr. James was not mollified. "Well, he hasn't. She has the Cooper piece, that's all, and she can keep That Boy's relative out of his way."

"It's a nice enough boy," said Bonham, placidly. "Full of spirit, but polite. Not like—"

"I hate him!"

Kit flinched at the vehemence, though he reflected a moment later that he shouldn't have missed that James would be jealous. He wondered if he should do anything about it, or if he could. Maybe that was one of the problems Dorian had to live with.

"Per'aps you do," came Bonham's voice. "Don't take on like that."

Sniffly weeping answered him. "With the aw- aw- awful m- ma... With _him_ away from the Earl, I want- wanted to k- keep close to him. Like the old days. But he's no time at all to think of economy, between the woman and That Boy."

"Restful, isn't it," said Bonham with meager sympathy. "'Ere, stop blubbering. I meant to give you this yesterday after the shore trip." There was a rattle of unfolding newspaper.

"Oh!" James's voice had recovered completely from the bout of tears. "_Wall Street Journal_! You spendthrift, it's this week's! Tell me you didn't pay the Earl's money for it."

"It's a present," said Bonham. "Now shut up and read it, okay?"

Kit, recovering from petrifaction and suspecting that the flow of information was about to dry up, resolved to find another deck chair to read in before it occurred to the Earl's people to look around the corner. Before he could manage a suitably silent retreat, however, further sounds indicated new arrivals who were known to James and Bonham.

A spate of greetings was followed by a quiet pronouncement in one of the new voices, "It's on, boys. The _Lead Balloon_ is dead on course and time. The Earl says yes."

"Who gives the word to go?"

"The underwater team," said the same voice. "He'll be waiting and timing separately, he said. And he's the boss."

"They're wasting fuel, just waiting for us," fretted James. "Submarine sea time is too expensive to waste. Isn't there something profitable it could be doing meanwhile?"

The voice sighed. "Mr. Twerp James, the _Balloon_ is to run within safety limits until the last push, and you okayed the budget for this trip yourself. Shut up." James gave an indignant gasp, and the sound of rattling paper became very loud.

Under cover of the noise and the laughter that accompanied it, Kit got up from his creaky deck chair and tiptoed nonchalantly past several empty chairs and an elderly Greek couple dozing side by side, to a place half in shadow where his freckles could fade as stealthily as they had emerged. He opened his book again, but Naples' museums still bored him. Dorian had never mentioned a submarine, but it sounded like he kept one. It sounded as though he raced it, although submarine racing could hardly be a spectator sport. Was that some of Dorian's business this morning? Kit wondered if he could ask about it.

Dorian had talked, one afternoon with Aunt Vivian and a collection of other passengers looking on, about boating and deep-sea diving. He hadn't mentioned a submarine. By accident or on purpose?

The sun stood at zenith. Mr. and Mrs. Vourgourakis were sound asleep, and even the murmur of conversation from the hidden men around the corner had stilled. Kit closed the _Great Museums_ and went down to the cabin where Dorian waited.

The first sight of him, studiedly casual in a figured caftan, decided Kit against mentioning anything about submarines. When he first appeared the Earl's eyes were guarded — had he had expected someone who was not a friend to knock at his cabin door? Then his face lit up with unfeigned pleasure. "Come in, Kit. You're the one person on the ship I wanted to see."

"You too," said Kit, fascinated by the smooth expanse of bare chest and throat revealed between sea-blue background and Majorcan octopi. He put out a hand to touch it, then both hands, then put his arms around Dorian's neck before he could stop himself.

This seemed to be the right move, for Dorian's arms went around him as well and his kiss was long and involved. "Lovely Kit," he murmured presently. "Lovely, lovely Kit, come to bed this minute."

Kit happily jettisoned their tentative plans for deck tennis and followed Dorian the few steps to the bed to begin undressing. He had never regretted following Dorian's lead, but the afternoon was warm and reckless and the cruise would end soon. "Would you like me on top this time?" he said, on impulse.

Dorian, wearing only the Viking bracelet, looked up in the act of seating himself on the bed. "I wondered if you'd ever ask." He leaned back in leisurely invitation, all smoothly-tanned skin and delighted face and stirring groin, and held out a hand. "Come here and you do the work this time." He looked at Kit's face and chuckled. "Oh, yes, you'll like it. And so will I."

It couldn't be impossible, perhaps not even difficult. Kit swallowed. _He's done it to me. But that's not the same._ For Kit, being taken was a blend of intense excitement and edge-of-pain sensation, desirable and bearable because of the sexual heat Dorian inspired so readily. Would it work the other way around?

Dorian's open eagerness was reassuring, even commanding, as Kit first climbed onto the bed; later the fire in both of them was assurance enough as Dorian guided their progress with words and body. Kit had no hesitation left when Dorian stroked him with cream-cool fingers before lying back and urging him on and up and over and, eventually, inside. Engrossed in hot, tight pressure that made it almost impossible not to thrust for more, Kit breathed once and pushed slowly. He was rewarded with a gasp, then a controlled, "Oh." Another gasp. "Again."

He moved, carefully, again. As promised, it was work. And as promised, it was impossible to dislike. Flesh quivered under him, around him, and some of the pressure relaxed. "Yes," Dorian said now, eyes closed, breathing rapidly. "That's good, that's wonderful."

The words became a mumble. Kit tried to keep some control, remembering vividly how very... much... it could feel, but the memory itself burned in him, and Dorian's body was an irresistible demand.

Dorian moaned, legs hard around Kit, face tightly closed in concentration, and Kit gave every scrap of attention to a steady, slow stroke that matched Dorian's rocking and ate at his own blazing nerves until he had no attention left for control or moderation. Then the flames raced through him.

When he could think and breathe and see again, he found himself surrounded from beneath by a twisting, blindly seeking body; a hard push reminded him to help Dorian through the desperate moments of near-completion. He felt a final shudder under his hand and also deep around his own fading erection in an unexpected surge of after-pleasure. Dorian was always a surprise.

He kept the hand curled, almost possessively, around the last moments of Dorian's climax until he was sure that his lover, too, had absorbed all the sensation he could feel or want, but the other face was still strained, eyes closed, and the other body held its tension until long after Kit was lying relaxed beside Dorian in the crowded bed, exhausted and satisfied but wondering, as ever, about him.

At last Kit heard a deep breath of awareness and saw the mouth twitch into a tiny smile. "Darling Kit. Thank you. You don't know how good that is."

Their positions had been reversed as recently as last night. "Don't I?"

The blue eyes were still faraway, shadowed. "There have been times when I wanted nothing else in the world but that, and had no chance of having it. None." He looked at the ceiling, then back at Kit and closed his mouth.

"What did you do instead?"

"Oh," Dorian took his time to think. "I gave a party, I caravanned across a desert, I explored a castle with old tunnels... Sometimes I even let Mr. James yell at me."

"You let Mr. James...?" said Kit, confounded.

The good-humored mouth lifted in Dorian's chuckle. "I suppose it sounds odd. Mr. James is my accountant. He has a fetish for money. Now and then he can be useful, but only if one listens to him."

Was that supposed to explain everything about Mr. James? But Dorian was going on: "I fly helicopters, I drive fast cars, I climb rocks, I... try to tie knots in a wire rope." He sighed. "It doesn't change anything. I still want beauty and more beauty."

He rolled over toward Kit and miraculously found a clean spot on the bed for both of them. "Sleepy?" His voice and touch were softly affectionate. "Go on to sleep, then."

Dorian hadn't mentioned the submarine, but Kit was too sleepy to ask him.

# # #

He showered before he left Dorian's cabin, and was glad of it when he ran into Aunt Vivian one bend down the corridor. "Goodness, Kit, have you been on deck all this time? I was just about to look for you."

He was wearing, naturally, the shorts and shirt he'd put on this morning for sunbathing. "I'm starting to freckle," said Kit, and stopped when he felt himself blush, clutching at the _Great Museums_ book.

"You're starting to sunburn," said Vivian. "Do be careful." But she wasn't really looking at him. "Do you think this color is right for me?"

Kit had long ago learned the only possible answer to that: "Yes, you look very fine."

"Good. Charlotte thought so yesterday."

"I'm sure Mrs. Melrose's judgement is better than mine." Kit wondered how much else Aunt Vivian might have learned from Mrs. Melrose. "Do you still think her friends are questionable?"

"Oh, no... I daresay the Earl is a good person, really." She looked up at him and added earnestly, kindly, "He may be perfectly all right, but don't you start to bother him, Kit."

Kit dropped the _Great Museums_ so that he could lean over and pick it up instead of letting her see his face. _I don't think I bother him at all._

"He hasn't been talking to you, has he?"

"Only a little," said Kit, suppressing several kinds of laughter. "He was talking last night about diving near the Greek Isles. Did you hear the part about the baby squid?"

"Oh, that. Yes." She nodded, reassured. "I hope this shade of gold isn't too fast, for me. It really wouldn't do at home, but in Italy, perhaps."

"It looks good," said Kit, rather at sea. Yellow was yellow, wasn't it?

"I'll wear it tomorrow at the Farewell," said Vivian, with sudden decision. "If it's not the thing there, it won't matter afterward."

"Yes, of course you're right," said Kit, feeling suddenly a little hollow.

# # #

They were to dock at Naples in the morning. Kit was acutely aware that this was the last night he might spend with Dorian, and when the Earl caught his arm just before he could follow Aunt Vivian into the farewell party in the thrown-open upper rooms, Kit needed no urging to accompany him back to his cabin instead. Kit knew and almost appreciated the impermanence of this liaison: it was excitement and pleasure, and life would have other pleasures, and Dorian was touching him, fingertip brushing his cheek, pushing hair back to trace an ear, smiling at him.

_Well,_ thought Kit, pleased with his new sophistication, _let's make it a good farewell._

Unaware of the bravely tragic look in his eyes, he was surprised to find Dorian whispering comfort instead of passion in the first embrace. "Don't be sad, lovely Kit, don't cry," didn't fit his new image of himself in a brief, mature affair with an attractive stranger.

Dorian was no stranger to his body now. Busy fingers undressed him, adding immediate fire to the expectant warmth that always filled him in Dorian's presence. He answered in kind, and found that the breathless undulation of flesh against flesh was as engrossing as ever, and in no way sad. If Dorian's arms around him were less casual than they might have appeared, that was no disappointment. Even the worldly Earl of Red Gloria could feel something more than easy pleasure, knowing that his ten-days' lover would be gone after tomorrow. Dorian pulled him onto the bed and they lay together without speaking again, bodies feeling toward the best way to satisfy this night's desire. Kit took a moment to fasten his mouth on Dorian's with all his concentration, and was pleased when Dorian, too, stilled and carefully returned the kiss in the midst of their silken, horizontal struggles.

Then Dorian's mouth lifted from his, and Kit saw his attention shift. There was an odd, rhythmic noise outside, a huge, windy beating. "What is it?"

"Nothing," said Dorian, and his arms tightened around Kit again, their legs moving in familiar patterns. For another moment all was well, more than well, with Kit and his lover.

The noise hadn't gone away. It grew, and Dorian's body tightened, listening again. "What..." he said, not really to Kit.

"You said it was nothing." It sounded like a helicopter.

_A helicopter? At sea?_

For a moment their bodies were closely twined in a meaningless embrace, until Dorian shook off the vague look and pulled himself up to crouch over Kit. "It has to be nothing," he whispered, and kissed him. "Don't listen." Another kiss, longer. "Don't let me listen." And his attention went meticulously to his actions and Kit's, both of them already responding to the lovemaking. They spoke only with hands and skin and bodies, using motion and sensation to shut out all sound.

It might have worked, until an impatient pounding run down the adjacent corridor — very different from the shuffle of most passengers or the even pacing of the stewards — became an impatient and noisy pounding on the door. Dorian's door.

Dorian sighed and began disentangling himself from Kit. "Whatever that is—"

The door crashed open without further preliminary. Kit abruptly became aware that he was naked, exposed, shielded only by Dorian's equally vulnerable body; Dorian was even more exposed to whatever mad danger threatened them. Kit sat up, unwilling to hide behind anyone.

Dorian, however, had managed to sit up as well, facing the intruder, and now wore a self-possessed smile. "How precipitate, Major," he said, before the other could speak.

The newcomer's mouth dropped open. In an instant he had converted it to a scowl, but the man — revealed in the room lights as tall and lean with dark shoulder-length hair and a dark jumpsuit — had been no less shocked than Kit. "You!" he said to Dorian, with concentrated hostility.

Dorian's reply made the most of his warm drawl. "Yes, me. Whose bedroom did you think you were bursting into? Do come in. I'm sorry if I'm not dressed for your company." He paused, and his tone became mockingly suggestive. "Or am I?"

The other stiffened, his manner cold and precise. "You appear," he said, "to have all the company you need." It was a sneer, but a note of astonishment crept in.

"_I_ thought so." Dorian's hand pressed over Kit's for a moment. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this untimely intrusion?"

Such aplomb was impossible, Kit thought, even for Dorian. And the man hadn't corrected the term "Major." Whatever was happening, Dorian knew this person.

"No pleasure," said the Major, and Kit realized also that he wasn't English. Well, there was no reason he should be. "My information directed me to find Jane in this cabin."

"In such haste? We heard you arrive. I should think the entire ship did." Dorian's smile was brittle. "Have you succumbed to romance at last, Major?"

"I am in a hurry for reasons I cannot discuss. Can you direct me to..." He stopped, eyed both of them in turn, and stayed silent.

Kit could not remember a Jane aboard for the cruise. Dorian said, "There's no..." He stopped and took in a long, delighted hiss of air. "Major, I believe I know who it is you want. Shall I bring Miss Hilhouse to you?"

The Major's eyes widened and his sneer sounded weaker. "_You_ aren't..."

"No, I'm not, I'm glad to say." Dorian's tone was gleeful as an open laugh. "Who chose that password?" He shook his head at the Major. "It was done hastily, I suppose. We must make allowances. Well, do you want to see the lady?"

"This is not a laughing matter!"

"Of course not," said Dorian smoothly. He rose from the bed with consummate grace to pull on discarded trousers — scarlet from this afternoon — and a sleeveless shirt, also red. The Major watched him with total dispassion. Dorian, while he did not prolong the process, was playing to his audience, and Kit knew it wasn't for him. What _were_ these two? The Major's conventional disgust of Dorian could not be mistaken, and Kit's presence seemed incidental to him, except as an unwanted pair of ears.

Dorian, preoccupied as he might be, had not forgotten him. He leaned toward Kit (presenting a tightly-red-encased backside to the Major's view) and said, "The Major won't hurt you, no matter what he says. I can promise you that. Wait for me." His eyes, for a moment, rested on Kit alone. Kit nodded.

The Earl straightened. "Won't be a tick," he said to the Major's scowl, and disappeared out the cabin door.

Kit, uncomfortably alone, followed Dorian's example and refused to cover himself. He sat up cross-legged and smiled at the stranger. "Christopher Barrington, sir."

The Major's eyes widened again to stare at Kit in white-faced assessment. He backed two deliberate steps to the wall. Kit could feel himself blushing, and hung onto his composure by main force. "And you?"

The hard stare became grimly neutral. "Perfect effrontery, you... young man. Perhaps you deserve him. I regret that I cannot introduce myself, for the same reason I am in much haste. It would be best if you did not speak of this to anyone."

"Best for whom?" asked Kit, and after a moment, "Do you deserve him, then?"

"Don't make me angry, Christopher." It was said with totally unconscious arrogance. "He is nothing, and he is nothing to me." _This man is so conceited he doesn't even know it,_ thought Kit. Until now, he had almost admired Dorian's pinnacle of conceit, but it no longer seemed an admirable quality.

They stared wordlessly at each other for the few minutes until Dorian's voice said from the doorway, "It was no trouble at all. Major, have you behaved yourself?" His eyes went to Kit for confirmation.

Kit, unable to find any words summing up the stranger's behavior, merely nodded. Dorian smiled back and handed some small object to the dark-clad man. "I trust you know her value."

It was, Kit saw, Mrs. Melrose's miniature. Of, memory clicked in, someone named Jane Hilhouse. Of course.

The Major did something to the intricate jeweled frame, then produced a loupe and examined it carefully under the room's lamp, ignoring the other two completely. After a moment he glanced up at Dorian, and briefly at Kit. "Yes, this is it. I shall return it to the owner myself."

Dorian smiled lazily. "Cabin A-16. I traded with the occupant early in the voyage. That's how I knew what you wanted. Beautiful, isn't she?" He was speaking, Kit knew by his tone, of the miniature.

The dark man glared at Dorian. "I couldn't care less." So was he.

Dorian was making a leisurely job of unbuttoning the red shirt. "But that's what makes it so convenient." His smile widened to include Kit. "Don't let me keep you, Major."

The Major, at the door, looked back to say, "I shall find the owner of this object and return it personally. For assurance."

"Must you?" sighed Dorian. "How tiresome."

"I think I must. You wouldn't want it thought that you had stolen it, would you? Since, as I see, you have free access to it?"

Dorian's eyebrows rose in a perfect expression of in well-bred surprise. "How thoughtful of you. Of course I wouldn't want anyone to believe such a thing."

"Of course not."

Dorian's tone became regretful. "Au revoir, Major. Much as I cherish your company, I have other plans for tonight."

The Major's eyes surveyed both of them again. "So I see." For the first time his face betrayed a faint redness. "I apologize for intruding on your privacy. Good-bye."

"You'll make a human being yet," returned Dorian.

The Major turned again to leave, and was nearly out the door before Dorian spoke again. "I would never stand between you and your duty." The door slammed. "Major." He gave a rather forced chuckle that deteriorated into a moan.

"Dorian?"

The Earl shook his head. "That bastard. At least he's gone now."

"Who is he?"

"No one you should know. His job was legitimate, if you want to call it that."

"What job?"

Dorian turned to look seriously at Kit. "Captain Bellino would hardly have let him land on the ship without verifying his mission, even if it was hasty."

"He told me not to talk about it. Him. His being here."

"Then don't." Dorian unfastened the red trousers. "I hope we have better things to talk about, or better still, to not talk about."

He slid down on the bed and put both arms around Kit, who could feel cool sweat on both of them. Dorian's voice was a warm whisper. "You did beautifully. That's the worst social crisis you'll ever face. Nothing beats the Major on a rampage."

Kit tried a whisper too. "Nothing?" He managed to wriggle suggestively at the right moment, and Dorian laughed.

"You are a shameless, beautiful... Mmm, yes."

Dorian's arousal, usually slow at this stage, fired up more quickly than ever before, leaving Kit far behind. Kit could only try to make it fast and good for him with some of the joyous art he had begun to learn. When it was over Dorian opened his eyes and gave an exhausted grin. "Sorry to be so... Some kinds of stress take me like that."

He pulled Kit back beside him and began touching him with inflammatory intent. "Your turn."

Kit lay back and enjoyed it, but other images still crowded in his head. "Have you known him long?" he asked.

"Him? Oh. Yes, far too long." He looked up at Kit. "He has no use for me, you know, and never has. Nor you."

"Are you sure?" Kit remembered the crackling intensity of the visit that had eased, a little, while Dorian was out of the room.

"Kit, don't borrow trouble. We have tonight. Don't think about anything else."

# # #

The _Da Vinci_ spent the next morning approaching Italian harbor. Kit, already packed and dressed for debarkation, found Dorian on deck, looking out over the railing that faced the open sea.

"The view's better from starboard," said Kit, to announce his presence.

Dorian, looking almost normal in a dark green suit of impeccable tailoring, flicked a glance at Kit and returned to gazing at water and sky. "Everyone will be starboard, then," he said. "Except us."

Kit saw his point. "I wanted to say..."

"Good-by?" Dorian's hand on the rail slid over to cover Kit's.

"It's been unbelievable. Wonderful."

The warm hand squeezed his. "For me, too. I'm glad." Dorian chuckled softly. "Even last night?"

"Well..." Kit had had time to review the whole of the entrancingly mysterious incident since he awoke. He knew he might never see the Earl again, but he had to ask one question. "You couldn't have stolen that miniature painting, could you?"

Dorian's hand left his and went round his waist instead. "Now what makes you think that?" The home-counties voice was relaxed, warm, teasing, and just an undertone sharp.

"The Major thought so. Didn't he?"

"It was a joke," said Dorian. "His excessively straight-laced conscience was upset by finding us in bed, though you wouldn't think it from that icy manner. So he made a bad joke."

The Major hadn't seemed to Kit to have any sense of humor at all. "But you do like the miniature. You've told me more about Samuel Cooper than I thought anyone could know about a painting." _What about Mr. James's submarine?_

"Yes, I do like it," said Dorian dreamily. His arm around Kit tightened. "Perhaps I'll see it in Rome. Mrs. Melrose is going to Rome."

"What did the Major want with it?"

"Kit, darling, you ask too many questions. I never know what the Major wants except," his voice hardened with frustration, "that he gets in my way every bloody time he shows up."

He shook off the mood. "Whatever it was, it couldn't wait twelve hours for us to dock. It was best to do as he asked and get rid of him quickly." He pulled Kit closer. "Don't think about him any more. He's bad news. Say good-by, and maybe we'll see each other again someday."

"Maybe," said Kit, thinking about the Major's implacable eyes. If that man ever decided he wanted anything from Dorian, Kit didn't care to be standing between them. "You're the most extraordinary person," he said, and in case that didn't sound like what he meant, "and the most extraordinary lover."

"Good," said Dorian, pleased, and kissed him there on deck, in full view of the gulls, the outer harbor, and any passengers who might look over from the starboard side.

Kit gave it his whole-hearted cooperation until twin screams from two directions interrupted them. Dorian pulled away without haste and grinned at him. "We've been found out," he whispered. Kit grinned back. The voyage and the other passengers would be only a memory soon. This moment was worth it.

"My lord!" An upset-sounding Mr. James dashed up from a hatchway and began gibbering something about a crisis, or accident, or currency-exchange fluctuation. Yes, it was a currency-exchange fluctuation. Mostly.

"Kit!" Aunt Vivian approached, breathing fire, from the starboard prow. "Stop that! Get away from him!" She glared at Dorian as she hauled Kit away by force of _loco parentis_. "I expected better of you, my lord!"

Kit gave him a last wave and called over his aunt's head, "I couldn't have," before he was dragged back toward dry land.

# # #


End file.
